Strata bylaw breaches rights code, MLA says
Landlords determined to fight eviction of couple and their toddler
Jeremy and Stacy Taylor say they have the perfect tenants living in the spacious one-bedroom rental unit they own in the 3700-block West 8th Avenue.
Friendly and professionally employed, the couple take great care of the place, say the Taylors — in particular the garden area, where their two-year-old daughter likes to chase butterflies.
“They are wonderful people,” says Stacy Taylor. “They felt so lucky to have found this place.”
The building’s strata council, however, seems to be of a different opinion and is now seeking the eviction of the tenants — who only moved in last month — based on a bylaw that deals with the number of residents per unit.
Bylaw 4.5 says that a unit designated as a one-bedroom cannot have more than two people living in it unless prior written approval is given by the council. Likewise, a two-bedroom unit can’t have more than four residents.
That approval was never sought, an oversight the Taylors, who have owned the unit since 2010, say they unsuccessfully tried to appeal in a subsequent meeting with the strata council.
At the time of renting out the unit, they were in the process of moving themselves, they explained, which is why they missed the bylaw detail. Even so, they find the regulation extremely harsh.
“We are talking about evicting a young family with a 21-month-old baby,” says Jeremy Taylor. “They don’t take into consideration the human aspect of it.”
Determined to fight the eviction, the Taylors have sought legal advice, including the opinion of David Eby, MLA for Vancouver-Point Grey.
In a letter to them, Eby wrote that B.C.’s Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination on the basis of family status. “The Code states clearly at section 4 that if there is a conflict between the Code and any other legislation in the provide, the Code prevails,” Eby wrote in his letter, a copy of which was given to the Sunday Province.
“Strata bylaws are considered provisional legislation and, where they are inconsistent with the Code, they have no effect.”
The Taylors say they will now present the strata council with a letter saying they have sought legal advice in the hopes that it will encourage the council to reconsider its position.
“We hope they back down,” says Jeremy Taylor. “It is surprising to me that a bylaw like this can exist. It seems like it flies in the face of human rights. Vancouver is an expensive city and it is hard enough to find a place to live.”